Enough
by Mimosa In The Morning
Summary: It's been twenty-one years since the events of The Lottery took place. Twenty-one years that David Hutchinson has lived with the fact that his mother is dead. When will enough be enough? *Shirley Jackson fanfiction David!centric* One-Shot


*Note* this is a fanfiction of The Lottery by Shirley Jackson for which there is no section on . But I'm posting it anyways. I own nothing except Cynthia, Donald, and the plot. Thank you for reading! *note*

David did not smile as he watched Cynthia braid her perfect golden hair in the mirror.

"Lighten up, Davy!" she sighed and clipped her hair with a flower pin that was far too juvenile for her twenty-three years. "Wipe that frown upside down, they say."

*Note

"Turn." He grunted the word without feeling.

"Hmm?" Cynthia hummed, proving- as she always did- that she had not been listening.

"The expression is turn that frown upside down... Not wipe."

"Whatever you say, dear." She waved her hand flippantly and gave her braid a quick pat. David said nothing; leaving the stolid, blank expression on his face without even a twitch. "Really, dear," Cynthia reiterated her preferred endearment like a broken record. "It's a wonderful movement you've started! You should be happy, not sulking in here like some moody preteen who's girl left him for Donald Delacroix!" She smirked at him over her shoulder for the briefest second before turning back to her reflection. Even though everyone had done so since the Delacroix's had first moved to town, David couldn't help but flinch at her mispronunciation.

David's frown deepened impossibly. "I thought we weren't going to talk about her anymore," he stated. That was the thing about David- he never questioned anything. It had taken him many years, but he had finally figured out that was probably the reason for all of the town's troubles. Nobody ever questioned anything.

"Sorry, dear," Cynthia said with artificial sweetness as she tossed her flaxen braid over her shoulder and stood up from her dressing table. "But you ended up with me, and isn't that what really matters?"

He couldn't imagine that Cynthia would take too kindly to being told that, no, it isn't. He decided to simply smile tightly and not cringe when she smoothed the front of his shirt with her impossibly delicate hands.

"There," she said as she fluffed his eternally bedraggled brown hair and stepped back to survey her masterpiece. "You look fantastic! Perfectly camera ready, if I do say so myself." Cynthia always had a way of being proud of her minuscule accomplishments.

"Like it matters," he tried to bite his tongue, but the words slipped out anyways. "Even if the paper covers it, there are only three hundred people in this town- and all of them will be there."

Cynthia frowned. "Don't you want everyone to know what you've done, Davy? Isn't this what you've always wanted?"

David mentally admonished himself for being so coarse with his wife of only six years- it wasn't her fault that he ended up the way he had. Then again, who was to blame? The lottery had taken too much from him already... His mother, his friends, his- No. He said he wasn't going to speak of Her, and he would not be breaking that promise today.

But...

Cynthia meant well- truly, she did!- and of course he loved her. He wouldn't have married her otherwise, but she didn't hold the same place in his heart that... She had. No one had before, and no one ever would again... Cynthia was enough; she wasn't Her.

Eight years ago, to the day, an event occurred that changed David. The way he thought about life and death, the way he slept and woke up, and even the way he maneuvered his way throughout the drab cobblestone paths had turned. He became colder, harder... sadder. He had never dreamed, in his wildest and most frightening nightmares, that She would ever be the one to draw the black dot. How could She be so unfortunate? She was so beautiful and kind... Her shocking green eyes had always been able to lock with his in a crowd. When the first round, smooth stone hit her in the head, forcing her skull to cave inward and those jade green gems to roll behind her ghostly pale eyelids... David knew his life would never again be the same. She was dead in an instant, gone from his life and on to the next without a goodbye- and he always regretted having let her go two months prior... He hadn't been her last kiss.

Pain was a funny feeling to have when he wasn't the one being stoned to death, especially because he had never really experienced it before- not truly, anyway. Yet, as he watched the girl he loved being beaten to death by her own friends and family- even he had cast his own- pain was the only word to describe the pulsating torture inside his chest. He felt as if he were being torn apart from the inside out as he watched her blood pool around her head and cake itself into her wonderful dark hair; that was when he decided to do anything he could to take this feeling far away.

It had taken him this long: eight more years of pleading, eight more years of signing, eight more years of his heart ripping in two at the sound of Her name, and eight more years of lotteries. Eight years of even more useless deaths that he had been powerless to stop... for the sake of tradition. Now he stood, looking down at the woman who had fallen in love with him and supported his mission despite the fact that he was so messed up. It was times like these, when she looked up at him in silence with a completely bare expression, that he wondered if she knew that he would never love her like he had loved Her.

'Better not to dwell on such things,' his older sister Nancy would say, if she were there. In fact, those were the only words Nancy ever said... The only words he had ever remembered her saying, we're the same words she'd said on repeat for the last twenty-one years of their lives. Since the day their mother died. Better not to dwell on such things.

"Of course I'm excited, Cynthia," he smiled finally. "I've been waiting for this day for a long time."

Satisfied, Cynthia quickly adjusted her worried, real expression to her triumphant, public one.

"Good! Now let me tie this for you so we won't be late- and don't even pretend that it won't take you all day to get it right." Her smirk was in place, but her eyes were still somewhat clouded. David wished he hadn't been so wiry before; maybe she had finally seen what he felt. Still, he let her stand on her tip-toes and fix his good, Sunday tie- not even moving away when her finger tips accidentally brushed the skin on his collarbone. Whether he stayed in place to reassure her or because he was too numb to move was anyone's guess, though he desperately hoped that it was the former.

When they arrived in the town square, holding hands but not really touching, David fought the bubble of nervous energy that threatened to pour out of him in waves when he saw everyone. Even though he had been preparing himself for this moment for weeks...months...years... The sudden raucous applause from the gathered people both excited and terrified him.

"Thank you so much for coming out today," he began slowly when he reached the podium that Mr. O'Donald had set up a few hours ago. Cynthia gave him a reassuring smile from her place in the crowd and he nervously smiled back. "Today you're becoming part of something amazing- the end of an era, some would say." The answering nods and hopeful grins gave him the extra burst of courage he needed to continue, steadily gaining more and more confidence as he spoke. "As you know, today is the second of June... The day we have our annual lottery."

He watched the smiles stumble slightly as the crowd remembered every loved one they had lost.

"But today is the day that all changes. Today is a day that has been in the works for eight years: the day the lottery ends." The crowd cheered and David tried to keep his grin in place, for what he had to say next already clogged his throat with tears... "We've been lead to believe that mindlessly killing people is right, but I have murdered too many that I love to let this go on any longer. My name is David Hutchinson, and my sister Nancy has lost her mind from witnessing these gruesome killings every year. My brother Bill still hears them scream at night. My name is David Hutchinson, and twenty-one years ago I stoned my own mother." A hush fell over the crowd; David ignored the single tear that had escaped, sliding down his cheek. "My name is David Hutchinson, and I say it's time that enough, finally means enough."


End file.
